punctuation Hi all, I am a truck driver and not always at home to res pone to many of the postings. But I would like to thank all who have responded. Though I initially took the criticism hard, I would like to say at 47 and having not done well in english class 30+ years ago, this is a new adventure so please keep this in mind. Additionally, how about some attention to the content. I do understand they go together, but I must learn to crawl before I walk.
no one i know or have heard of use the full spelling of those common latin abbreviations... if they did, 'id est' would still need a comma after it, since it means 'that is' and in english, that expression does take a comma, the same as 'however' and other similar qualifying terms...
I disagree. The sentence to which you referred, 'The boy ran down the street and stopped at the door', is a compound sentence, as it has two independent (main) clauses: 'The boy ran down the street' and 'stopped at the door'. In the second, it may look as though there is no subject, but the subject is implied: there is still a subject, but it's just unwritten, so therefore it is a clause in its own right, meaning that the placement of a comma before 'and' is up to the author's preference. 'The Elements of Style', by Strunk and White, stresses this point.
I like this thread. =] I've always been one to overuse commas and semi-colons; I really can't help it (see? Haha. =P). Though I've always had trouble figuring out for myself if I placed the comma correctly. Thank you!!